Thread: The Sound of Silence

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The Sound of Silence
By Linda Chavez
Friday, January 4, 2008



Arizona has been ground zero in the fight against illegal immigration -- but a funny thing happened this week when a new anti-illegal alien state law went into effect. Nothing.

The law, one of the toughest in the nation, requires jurisdictions to investigate complaints by ordinary citizens against local businesses that may be employing illegal aliens. But apparently most Arizonans have better things to worry about. A spokesman for the state attorney general said his office had received about a half dozen calls. Some jurisdictions, including Pima County, which runs along the border with Mexico, received no complaints. It's not exactly what you'd expect if Arizonans were chomping at the bit to run illegal aliens out of the state and punish their employers.



Mexican immigrant Antonio Lemus (2nd L) is taken to a processing center by Immigration and Customs Enforcement fugitive operations officers after they entered his home to take him and his two brothers in for questioning as suspected illegal aliens in Santa Ana, California September 13, 2007. There is a growing number of illegal immigrants across the United States who are starting to pack their bags and move on as a crackdown on undocumented immigrants widens and the U.S. economy slows, turning a traditional Christmas trek home into a one-way trip. To match feature USA-IMMIGRATION/SELFDEPORT REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson (UNITED STATES)

A new study out by the conservative think tank Americas Majority Foundation (www.amermaj.com) suggests a possible explanation why more Arizonans aren't rushing to run off illegal workers. It turns out Arizonans may be better off -- not worse -- because of the presence of so many immigrants in the population.

This sounds counterintuitive, at least if you believe current political rhetoric and tendentious research by anti-immigrant groups like the Center for Immigration Studies, NumbersUSA, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. But the Americas Majority Foundation data are pretty persuasive. States with the highest percentage of immigrants or the largest recent influx of immigrants --19 High Immigrant Jurisdictions (HIJs) in all -- are wealthier, have better employment numbers and most have better crime figures than those with fewer immigrants.

In Arizona, for example, personal income is higher, as is the gross state product, the measure of all economic activity in the state. Unemployment is lower, as is household poverty. And crime is lower than both the national average and the average among states with fewer immigrants.

And, the trends for HIJs are every bit as good as the absolute numbers. Not only are GSP, personal income, per capita personal income, disposable income, per capita disposable income, median household income and per capita median personal income higher than in other states, but they have been growing at faster rates between 1999 and 2006 than in other states.

In the area of crime, the trends are especially encouraging for HIJs. The 10 high influx states, those that experienced the most dramatic percentage increases in immigrant population from 2000-2007, had the lowest rates of violent crime and total crime, according to FBI figures. In 1999, the 19 HIJs did have higher crime rates, but the rates declined much faster than they did in lower immigration states over the next seven years: 13.6 percent faster compared with 7.1 percent in total crime and 15 percent compared with 1.2 percent in violent crime, leading to lower crime rates overall in HIJs in 2006.

These statistics don't suggest that illegal immigration is not a problem for many jurisdictions. Illegal immigrants do impose costs, including increased health care and education expenses. Ironically, one of the growing costs is for incarcerating illegal aliens picked up in immigration raids or for offenses that usually don't justify jail time. These increases are a direct result of efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. And if states like Arizona decide to vigorously enforce their new laws, we can expect to see these costs go up without much, if any, offset in savings to those jurisdictions.

The immigration debate is likely to continue untempered by the facts the Americas Majority Foundation has pulled together, at least through the political primary season. But the overwhelming majority of Americans -- two-thirds to three-fourths, according to most polls -- have no wish to see most long-term illegal alien residents rounded up and sent home. What they do want is a more concerted effort to secure the borders so the numbers don't keep increasing.

Citing a November Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, the Manhattan Institute's Tamar Jacoby noted recently that "63 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of independents favor allowing illegal immigrants who meet certain conditions -- registering, being fingerprinted, paying a fine and learning English -- to earn citizenship over time."

Jacoby points out that the politicians don't seem to be listening. But if we can get through 2008, maybe the sound of silence emanating even from places like Arizona will finally be heard.


http://www.townhall.com

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BrianR writes: Friday, January, 04, 2008 12:21 AM
The usual Chavez crock on this topic
First problem: she talks about "immigrants", who are legal entrants to the country, trying to conflate them with illegal aliens.

No sale, Chavez.

Then the poll she quotes at the end, sourced: LA Times/Bloomberg. She has to go to the LA TIMES for support, not exactly noted for beiong anything other than flamingly liberal.


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Alan writes: Friday, January, 04, 2008 1:20 AM
Demagoguery again
Again with "anti-immigrant." Anyone who disagrees with Linda Chavez must of course be bigoted. Oh, of course.

Townhall, ditch the bi***. The presence of her columns on this site demeans the site. On issues like this, all she has to offer is Michael Moore logic. And conservatives are sick of it.

Chavez, get the hell out of my country and go somewhere that values your mindless hatred for people who have the audacity to disagree with you. Like Saudi Arabia.
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lodestar writes: Friday, January, 04, 2008 2:08 AM
at the risk of piling on...
... enough of the apologia for ILLEGALS, Linda! We all get that you are egregiously ethnocentric-- Hispanic first, American second-- just like recent RNC (Rino Network for reConquista) Chairman Mel Martinez, Commerce Sec. Carlos M. Gutierrez, appointed Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Col). It becomes clear that blood is thicker than patriotism-- and sullies the well of common sense.

Never mind that ILLEGAL aliens are here ILLEGALLY, and most are totally wrong for today's American economy because they are ignorant and indigent, thus ineluctably certain to become net drains on taxpayers and substantial users of government services. Furthermore, they are willfully clinging to Spanish, thus assuring balkanization and a cycle of pandemic social pathologies (gangs, drugs, crimes, illegitimacies, dropouts).

Never mind that other countries with sensible immigration policies (even Mexico) do not tolerate such encroachers/invaders. What we have here is NOT immigration-- it is an invasion and pervasion of an acute socio-economic peril. Linda can slap lipstick all over this pig, but it fools no thinking person.
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lodestar writes: Friday, January, 04, 2008 4:04 AM
lies, damm lies, and statistics
I just read this tripe column in detail-- what egregious, disingenuous apologia! To suggest that crimes do not follow ILLEGALS like flies follow manure is just that-- manure spreading! Some more believable stats...

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/SR14es.cfm
http://www.theamericanresistance.com/ar ... t2004jan04. html
http://www.amren.com/Reports/Hispanics/ ... Report.htm
http://www.immigrationshumancost.org/index.html
http://www.cis.org/topics/costs.html

As for alleged/fabricated economic benefits of ILLEGALS, Heritage estimates that each ILLEGAL alien household headed by the typical undereducated ILLEGAL alien will drain $1.4 million more in government services than is ever paid in taxes-- assuming they eventually actually pay taxes beyond use taxes.

Other advanced economies KNOW that it is a formula for disaster to allow the ignorant indigent and culturally disparate to come in to do a country's less desirable tasks... Europe is now reeling with regret for having imported such Islamics for short-sighted imagined benefits.


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Chopper John writes: Friday, January, 04, 2008 4:59 AM
Lodestar,
I was getting all spooled up to vent, but your excellent posts removed the necessity. Really, really well done. And so early in the morning as well.
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Alex writes: Friday, January, 04, 2008 5:01 AM
Questions
I wonder which side her toast is buttered on. This seems an obvious case of the White House co-opting a conservative voice again to further the globalist agenda. This is not the first time, nor the last most likely. Her figures are stacked, and all in the wrong direction. Up in the Northeast, a person of limited education could support his family in the construction business. Forget it now, unless your name is Jose and your willing to work for $10-$15 under the table, your not getting hired, unless you happen to be the TA, Token American, the one who is trotted out when ICE or other immigration authorities show up. Painting? Forget it, unless your well established, but then most of your workers are named Jose anyways. Yard work, remember the neighborhood kids mowing the lawn and doing the weeding. Not anymore, the illegals can underbid even high school kids and if they can't their has been a nasty outbreak of garages and equipment catching on fire up here.

Linda has obviously been bought off by White House influence. How many more "conservative" Commentators will end up taking the money and running, all to promote the North American Union?

Never mind the cost in incarcerating, never mind the medical cost, never mind the cost of education, the simple fact is that illegals depress the wages of hard working Americans, and cost lives, as American's try to get treatment at Emergency Rooms and have to wait while Illegals get treated for the common cold.
When one of my coworkers opened his his palm to the bone due to the incompetence of an illegal immigrant worker, he then nearly bled out while waiting for treatment at the local emergency room, all due to illegals using it as their primary care. He ended up spending two days in the hospital, all because he had to wait so long.
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Scott writes: Friday, January, 04, 2008 5:09 AM
Linda Chavez - It's not so complicated..


This really isn’t so complicated, Linda.


Any U.S. citizen who knowingly hires “illegalsâ€

Again, the false dichotomy - either they are 'rounded up and sent home' or they stay. They will self deport if hiring regulations are enforced. Besides, citizen confidence is low. If citizens see action as a result of the early reports, more will chime in.

So when employment laws are enforced and the 11 million illegals cannot get work they will self deport !!??

so we will see a line of 11 million uneducated mexicans walking across the south border into mexico.

they came into the country knowing they could be shot at the border crossing. They have lived here for 15 years. Now when there is no employment they will just quietly walk across the border.

a starting point would be to first stop any more illegals from getting in. you dont want 11 million desperate illegals in the country. desperate ppl do desperate things. if there are rallies and disruptions in our cities are we ready to do it the china way. round them up in a square and start firing rounds.

Immigration is a complex problem.

In Arizona, for example, personal income is higher, as is the gross state product, the measure of all economic activity in the state. Unemployment is lower, as is household poverty. And crime is lower than both the national average and the average among states with fewer immigrants.





Which Arizona is this guy talking about?

I'm from Arizona and believe me, he's got to be talking about "the other one".